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Wesley Parish - 2007/04/28 17:59:23

The big problem I see is that I, who run Linux as a home user, and who has some experience with FreeBSD, OpenSolaris and Minix, understand this concept - restricting rights to ordinary users on a "need to know" basis, and granting extraordinary rights on production of superuser authentication - quite well. And this requirement for superuser authentication only turns up when I am doing something with the system. I have no need of it when I am doing things with my own files in my own home directory. I can even get reliable up-to-date system information by giving a full path to a given system administration tool (in the sbin or /usr/sbin directories) without superuser authentication - as long as I am just asking for information, and not intending to change any settings or take any other action.

I have it on good authority - from a computer technician who knows a lot more about MS Windows than I'll ever know - that MS Windows Vista's UAC goes over the top with its queries, and with its demands - what really got his gander was the continual questioning of the superuser/Administrator - while he was working as Administrator.

Of course the Unix security model can do with quite a bit of tweaking, and there are some projects aiming to do just that - but a system that paranoid - why, the next installment will see Vista asking for your password in order to log out - a la some more paranoid manifestations of Multics.

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